Springer, Jan - Be My Dream Tonight [The Desperadoes 3] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) (21 page)

“I went up to check on the windmill after finishing with the horses in the barn, so no, I didn’t see her. I can see we have electricity. I thought I told you to wait until supper?” Kayne queried as he slumped down at the kitchen table and watched Maddox as he went back to singing and salted some venison. Kayne’s mouth watered just imagining how good that deer was going to taste at dinner tonight.

Riley looked over his shoulder at Kayne and shook his head sadly. “If I had to wait until supper to use this electricity, what the hell would its use be for? We can eat by candlelight. I don’t need electric light. You’d have me slaving away, putting wood in this stove, and trying to keep it on an even heat so I can cook my wheatlets without it burning?”

Wheatlets? Riley was cooking wheatlets? Wasn’t that some hot breakfast cereal or porridge for old people or something?

“You’re sounding like an old woman, Ri,” Kayne teased. That would explain why he was whipping up wheatlets.

“Hey, don’t pick on Riley,” Maddox chastised, thankfully giving Kayne a momentary reprieve from his singing. “He’s preparing wheatlets to fry up for tomorrow’s breakfast. If you piss him off, he’ll stop, and I’ll be stuck making everything myself because we all know what a lousy cook you are.”

Great, now both of them were acting like two old, disgruntled women. Kayne chuckled, fell silent, and then gazed out the nearby window. He couldn’t help but tense as both men started singing way too loudly again.

Gold sunshine splashed against the whitecapped mountains to the west. Here in the valley the shadows were getting long and blue, and he jumped when the window panes rattled as a burst of wind tapped against it.

Kayne frowned as uneasiness slithered through him like a snake. He should go out and look for Eve. They hadn’t spoken since she’d told him the news about their kid. He should have told her about his decision about staying. Told her why he didn’t want to go and get the gold. He would put killing Wolfe on hold for now. He just wanted to see his kid. Wanted to ask Eve if she would stay here with him. With them. He would need Mad and Riley around for protection. It wasn’t safe to live on their own.

Hell, for all he knew she didn’t want to have anything else to do with him if he told her he didn’t trust C.J. But he couldn’t help it. He didn’t know her. Didn’t trust a woman who would threaten to kill Eve.

He forced himself to smile as their jovial off-key singing only got louder. He was glad Mad and Riley were happy. He would be happy, too, once Eve showed. He got up and went to the window and peered out. The vegetable garden looked deserted. Beyond that, nothing moved out there but the pine trees swaying in the wind past the meadow. So, where the hell was she?

Instincts told him to go out and find her and talk about his decision, but he clamped down on that feeling. He couldn’t go out looking for her every time she decided she needed a little alone time. She’d get pissed off and think he was some overprotective goof. Yeah, she’d be back soon. They would have supper and talk afterwards by a nice, cozy fire.

Kayne sighed wearily and returned to his chair. In order to keep his thoughts off Eve, he forced himself to start singing along with the other two guys. Heck, someone had to show them that someone around here knew how to sing on key.

* * * *

“She’s gone!” Maddox shouted as he came out of the barn and met Kayne and Riley, who were returning from looking for Eve. When she hadn’t come back by nightfall, Kayne and Riley had headed out in separate directions, and Maddox had remained back at the cabin with the lights glowing, standing on the porch watching for any movement of Eve in the darkness.

Fuck! He hadn’t even thought about checking the barn until an hour had gone by. He’d trusted her when she’d said she was going for a freaking walk.

“What do you mean she’s gone?” Riley snapped.

“Her horse is gone. Our horses, too, and the fucking wagon we were going to use to haul the gold,” Maddox explained in a mad gush. He was surprised he was able to formulate words he was so upset.

“She took all the horses?” Kayne growled.

“All of them. We’ve been fucking abandoned!” Maddox shook his head as disbelief continued to claw through him.

“She must have been listening to our discussion in the barn, and then while we were in the cabin singing our idiot brains out, she snuck here,” Kayne said. Maddox could hear the regret lacing his voice and understood that Kayne would blame himself for not talking this over with Eve. Too late now. He resisted the urge to get snapping mad at Kayne. It was all their faults. They should have included her in their discussion. Man, when would they ever learn that Eve didn’t like to be ordered around?

“How the hell did she get all the horses and wagons out of here without us even seeing or hearing anything?” Riley asked.

“It was all that loud fucking singing. If you’d kept your mouths shut we would have heard something,” Kayne snapped at him and started for the cabin.

“Well, excuse us, but it didn’t stop you from singing along,” Maddox complained.

“Okay, chill, you two. This is not the time to lose it. We need to find her fast,” Maddox said, feeling the tension zipping through the air between Mad and Kayne.

“How? She’s got all the horses, and who knows how long she’s been gone,” Riley said as he followed Mad and Kayne back to the cabin.

“We’ll have to hoof it out of here and follow her on foot. The wagon will slow her down a little,” Kayne ordered as they burst through the door. “Pack light but pack for several days. We’ll have to live off the land as we go in order to make our supplies last. We need to get to Eve before she and C.J. try to take on the Wolfe Gang on her own. And when we catch up to Eve, she’s going to regret what she’s done, and I’ll make sure she doesn’t run again. Even if I have to tie her to a bed to make it happen.”

Despite the seriousness of the situation, Riley grinned. “I do enjoy a good punishment, right Mad?”

Mad tossed Riley a wobbly grin, but he didn’t answer. He knew, just as both Kayne and himself knew, there was a pretty good possibility Eve would be dead before they ever reached her.

* * * *

Eve was still cursing Kayne, Maddox, and Riley two nights later as she sat cross-legged behind a bunch of scraggly pine trees and watched the black mouth of the cave C.J., Lane, and herself had escaped almost two years ago. Back then it had been just as creepy and cold as now.

Back then she’d been in so much pain she hadn’t been able to orient herself due to her head injury, but tonight she felt revitalized and confident that C.J. and herself could pull off this heist themselves. Over the past couple of years she’d kept every bit of information tucked away in her head regarding how to get to this cave, as well as how many men and women Wolfe would probably have on his payroll. C.J. had also told Eve that Wolfe was a creature of routine as well that he had trust issues. He didn’t like change, and he didn’t like new people. C.J. suspected that’s why Wolfe hadn’t moved the gold, and he’d probably have the same trusted people surrounding him.

Lane had been an old friend of Wolfe’s, and that’s how Lane had easily infiltrated the gang. Wolfe had trusted him. Obviously after Lane had taken C.J. and herself from Wolfe, the bastard had put out a hit on Lane, and someone had taken him out in
Hell
City
. Until this very day guilt raged at the back of her mind because Eve knew if Lane hadn’t helped her and C.J. escape, then he may still have been alive today.

Last night, she’d left the horses in a nearby valley and walked in the darkness using the green lights in the sky as her lantern. This morning, she’d slept inside a huge, hollowed-out trunk of a tree, had a light breakfast, and then scooted here. She wondered where C.J. was. She’d said she’d be here, but there’d been no sign of her.

Eve had told her they’d be pulling out in the morning when she’d last spoken to her, so C.J. wouldn’t be expecting them until tomorrow. Well, that was okay. She’d just watch the mouth of the cave for a few more hours, and in the morning she’d start looking around for C.J., and then they could plan the heist. Soon they would have all the gold they needed to secure themselves a safe future. Eve just hoped nothing would go wrong.

* * * *

C.J. figured she wouldn’t make any rendezvous with Eve and her three men. Instead of going straight to the place where Wolfe was holding the gold, she’d deviated from her plans at the last minute as an overwhelming urge to see her son and Eve’s daughter had taken hold. She’d spent half a day with them, hugging them and kissing them, committing them to her memory. Just in case something were to happen to her.

Her heart sang as she watched Caleb holding Kaylynn’s pudgy hand as she tried to walk. Her heart cried when she realized that Eve would want Kaylynn with her and Kaylynn’s father. She knew instantly her father was Kayne. The child had his blue eyes and Eve’s blondish-brown hair. Such a sweet-looking girl. How in the world would Caleb and herself get along without Eve and Kaylynn? She had no idea, but she knew they would simply have to.

The pain of dealing with a separation was too much to bear, so she focused her attention on spending the other half day hunting so the people who’d taken in their children would have enough food to get them through for a few more days.

She trusted them. They were three women, ex-pleasure workers from Hell City. Women who were so overprotective of the kids that C.J. almost had her head blown off when she’d ridden into their secluded compound a day’s ride away from that cabin Eve was staying at.

C.J. had met them shortly after Lane had gotten her and Eve away from Wolfe. They’d stayed with the women for a couple of weeks before Lane had wanted to strike out again. That man had been something else. A tender-hearted fellow who should never have been a mercenary. Damned fool. He’d broken her heart when she’d learned he’d been gunned down in the street by an unknown assailant. She’d cursed his dead body after discovering he’d been brought to some undertaker business. Someone, the undertaker hadn’t said who, had paid the expenses to have Lane buried. She knew it had been Wolfe. Bastard.

But now she was back on the trail again, the cold air blasting against her face and almost freezing her tears of sadness at leaving the kids again. She travelled fast. She’d travel all night, and then when she neared her destination, she’d rest up before getting close to the cave to investigate. She only hoped that Eve and her three men would have the common sense on waiting until she got there so she could give them the lowdown on everything she knew about Wolfe’s gang.

Having to speak to Eve’s men was a real turnoff because whenever she was forced to talk to a man, an almost uncontrollable anger seethed inside of her. So she made it a habit to avoid men at all costs. She knew she needed some sort of counseling, but hey, these days things like that just didn’t exist. She just needed to deal with the shit on her own.

She’d only decided to help out with the heist because Eve was involved, and she didn’t want Kaylynn to end up without a mother. That’s the only reason she was coming back to Wolfe’s hideout, because only God knew the horrors she’d endured at their hands.

C.J. forced any and all thoughts of her captivity out of her mind and turned her thoughts to her son, Caleb. She didn’t know who his father was, but for a certainty she knew it wasn’t Wolfe. Caleb didn’t look the least bit like him. There wasn’t a mean bone in that little boy’s body, and when he grew up, C.J. knew he would be the perfect gentlemen with the girls because he was so good with Kaylynn.

She smiled and nudged her horse to move faster. Yeah, she had a good little boy on her hands, and she would make sure he stayed that way.

* * * *

Eve had fallen asleep. She realized that fatal mistake the instant terror clawed through her. Suddenly, she couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t formulate a thought as the grogginess of sleep was ripped from her mind. Sickness clung to her tummy, and she didn’t have to open her eyes to know she’d been discovered. The cold mountain air around her suddenly seemed colder and sinister.

Someone stood over her, watching her sleep, and she knew by the scent it wasn’t C.J. This person smelled of man. Sweat, pine, and dampness. He smelled of evil. She knew exactly who it was. She prayed she was wrong. Prayed to heaven she was locked in a nightmare.

Panic welled inside her, and she swore her heart was beating so loud he could hear her fear. She knew she should lift her rifle from where she’d cradled in her arms but stiffened as she heard several clicks as guns’ safety catches were released. Devastation rocked her as her rifle was violently yanked out of her hands. Her eyes snapped open, and she swore she stared into the face of the devil.

“Well, well, well. Look who came back to the lair. It’s about time.”

Wolfe had found her, and Eve’s worst nightmare had just come true.

* * * *

C.J. knew something was wrong. She sensed it even while she slept. She was weird that way in getting premonitions when bad things were about to happen. Sometimes the forewarnings happened a day or two before the event. Sometimes she only had seconds of warning. The latter was happening now, and she was getting a warning loud and clear that bad things were about to happen. Before she could even open her eyes and swing her rifle into position to shoot whoever was standing over her, she felt the kiss of cold metal from a gun press against her right temple.